Jail time depend on what action did you failed: from 20 mins for trying to sell CD to around 13 hours for unsuccessful bombing.

When in the city Jail, you can train every stat except dexterity (reason below) but gain will be much lesser than on normal city gym. Also, you can't do anything that require access to city and view your home page, however you can use in-jail chat, visible only for other inmates, visit Faction and use your mailbox.

Jailbreak

Bust

Bust is an attempt to free imprisoned person from the Jail by someone outside. The only important factor while doing this is your dexterity, which increase your chance of success.
Every bust cost 10 energy, but it could be decreased by faction's Pertinent upgrade.

If you fail bust someone, you find yourself in Jail for around 1h - 1h 45mins.

Remember, the inmates who have:

lower level

shorter jail time left

sentence for failed bust or self bust

are easier to bust. Also don't try to bust too many people in short time, because it will increase your fail chance. Yes, the prison guards aren't so blind.

Self bust

You're impatient and you don't want to wait? Then try to escape oneself.

Attempt of self bust cost half of your max nerve bar (rounded up) and can be done only, if your Jail time is lesser than 200 minutes. Once again, only dexterity can help here.

Fail cause receiving additional Jail time.

Bail and self bail

You don't feel enough dexterious? They pay for someone's freedom.

Bail cost (25 * remaining Jail time in minutes * inmate level).

You can also buy yourself from prison, if you have certain edu done or Lawyer Business Card.

Helpful things

You can improve you ability of break out by:

doing Law education. Certain courses:

- reduce the chance of being caught when trying to escape from Jail and amount of Nerve required to escape from Jail.
- give the ability to buy yourself out of Jail.
- give a total 15% bonus to your skill in Busting and the same discount when buying people out of Jail.
- Bachelor of Law makes busting 50% easier and buying out 50% cheaper.